This appendix provides additional details on the possible determinants of
outcomes under CalWORKs. Unless otherwise noted, the information is drawn
from the U.S. Committee on Ways and Means Green Book for 1996 and 2000.

Federal Reforms

The recent history of welfare reform begins with the 1988 Family Support Act
(FSA), which was based on the concept of mutual responsibility and established
the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) program (in California, the GAIN
program (discussed further below)) to provide education and training for welfare
recipients and assistance in finding employment. Also, beginning in the late
1980s and accelerating during the early 1990s, the federal government granted to
states a wide-ranging set of waivers to modify their welfare programs, including
(1) changes to the benefit structure to encourage work; (2) stronger sanctions for
nonparticipation in mandatory WTW activities; and (3) lifetime time limits on
receipt of cash assistance.

These early reform steps culminated in 1996 in the sweeping welfare reform of
PRWORA. That legislation replaced the AFDC program with the TANF
program. PRWORA limited lifetime federally funded assistance in a TANF
program to five years, and it devolved nearly complete discretion to the states in
designing their TANF programs. To implement this new discretion, most federal
funding for state welfare programs was rolled into a single flexible TANF block
grant. Table A.1 summarizes the caseload decline, work participation rates, and
the benefit structure—the cash benefit for a family of three and maximum
earnings at which a long-term recipient is still eligible for cash assistance.

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